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A Ohat About Oatmeal

A simple hot oatmeal made by boiling water, adding salt, and slowly stirring in oatmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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A Ohat About Oatmeal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add the salt to the boiling water.

Cook

  1. Slowly sift the oatmeal into the water while stirring gently with your fingers to avoid lumps.

  2. Once it begins to boil, stop stirring and cover the pot tightly.

  3. Reduce the heat and let it cook without stirring for the remainder of the cooking time.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the body of the porridge as its starch swells and thickens in the water.
Water
Hydrates the oats so they soften and cook into a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Sifting the oatmeal in slowly while stirring. Dry oats clump when they hit hot water, because the outer starch gels before the inside gets wet. Sifting slowly and stirring gently spreads the oats out so they hydrate evenly and form fewer lumps.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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